1. Technical Field
Example embodiments of the present invention relate in general to network duplexing, and more specifically to a method and apparatus which enable integrated management and analysis of flow information with respect to an asymmetric flow configured in such a manner that a packet outflow passage from a network duplexing apparatus is different from a packet inflow passage to the network duplexing apparatus.
2. Related Art
When network duplexing is applied in a point of presence (PoP) of a communication company or an enterprise network, at least two inflow passages or outflow passages of traffic may be configured. In this case, traffic which occurs in each of an access path from a remote location and a node (terminal) corresponding to a management network may use different paths from each other.
In this manner, when a flow of traffic which is generated from a remote location to be transmitted toward a terminal and a flow of traffic which is generated in the terminal to be transmitted toward the remote location use different paths from each other in the network duplexing apparatus, such a flow may be defined as an asymmetric flow. On the other hand, when a flow of traffic which is generated from a remote location to be transmitted toward a terminal and a flow of traffic which is generated in the terminal to be transmitted toward the remote location use the same path in the network duplexing apparatus, such a flow may be defined as a symmetric flow.
In this case, since flows constituting the asymmetric flow are managed in mutually different network interface units, consistent management for the flows is difficult, and therefore service providing or consistent management for quality of service (QoS) in a network duplexing environment is made difficult.
Thus, when a consistent information management method for such an asymmetric flow is provided in a duplexed network having a plurality of interfaces, one step advanced response such as service providing or QoS may be possible.
When a network service provider, a manager of an enterprise network, or a Telco operator presents an ability to analyze packets which flow in all interfaces under the same condition, various functions such as scalability, auto-load balancing, additional capacity, flexible deployment, and the like may be provided.